, hence, to stop the tide of the divine judgments. The
corruption was so deeply rooted, that only single individuals could be
saved, like brands from the burning. It had made fearful progress under
the protracted reign of Manasseh, whose disposition must be regarded as
a product of the spirit of the time then prevailing, of which he must
not be considered as the creator, but as the representative only, 2
Kings xxiii. 26, 27, xxiv. 3, 4. The scanty fruits of his late
conversion had been again entirely consumed under the short reign of
his wicked son Amon; it had indeed so little of a comprehensive or
lasting influence, that the author of the Book of Kings thought himself
entitled altogether to pass it over. It was even difficult to put
limits to outward idolatry; and how imperfectly he succeeded in this,
is seen from the prophecies of Jeremiah uttered after the reformation.
And even where he was successful in his efforts; even where an emotion
was manifested, a wish to return to the living fountain which they had
forsaken, even there, the corruption soon broke forth again, only in a
different form. With deep grief, Jeremiah reprovingly reminds the
people of this, whose righteousness was like the morning dew, in chap.
iii. 4, 5: "Hast thou not but lately called me: My Father, friend of my
youth, thou? Will He reserve His anger for ever, will He keep it to the
end? Behold, thus thou spakest, and soon thou didst the evil, didst
accomplish"--an _accomplishment_ quite different from that of the
ancestor. Gen. xxxii. 29. Since the disease had not been healed, but
had only been driven out from one part of the diseased organism, the
foolish inclination to idolatry was followed by as foolish a confidence
in the miserable righteousness by works, in the divine election,--the
offering up of sacrifices, &c., being considered as the sole condition
of its validity. "Trust ye not in lying words"--so [Pg 365] the Prophet
is obliged to admonish them in chap. vii. 4--"saying, The temple of the
Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are they" (the
people imagined that they could not be destroyed, because the Lord had,
according to their opinion, for ever established His residence among
them; compare 1 Cor. iii. 17; 1 Tim. iii. 15). "Thou sayest, I am
innocent; His anger hath entirely turned from me; behold I plead with
thee, because thou sayest: I have not sinned," chap. ii. 35. "To what
purpose shall there come for me incense f